As I mentioned, I was fortunate to spend 2 years living in the jungle of Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer. Going to Ecuador was my first experience travelling outside the US other than day trips to Niagra Falls once and Tijuana a few times. I remember when the plane took off from Miami airport. I was nervous about the move. I think we all were. After all, a two year committment is pretty long, especially when you have no idea what you are getting yourself into.

As the plane was arriving into Quito I had the sense that I was dreaming. When it landed and I got off the plane and actually put my foot on the ground, it hit me that I was indeed "there". This place existed. It wasn't just a place on a map.

Our first stop was the Hotel Savoy. I think every PC volunteer in Ecuador probably has a few fond memories of the Savoy. We stayed there for orientation about a week. Then it was off to live with an Ecuadorian family in the PC training site of Tumbaco. Tumbaco is about an hour east of Quito. It is a nice town. Growing fast as a "suberb" of Quito. When I was there it was pretty mellow, but two years later when I was leaving country, it had sprawled to be a fairly large place.

My training family owned a little general store that they lived above. They had a decent, comfortable home and they were a very nice family. They accepted me into their home and treated me kindly. I am grateful to them for helping make my transition to life in a foreign country a little easier.

After 3 months in PC training, I was sent to Tena. Tena is the provincial capital of Napo. It 's population was about 12,000 people when I was there, but I'm sure it has grown since then. I loved living in Tena. The people were very, very friendly. They would invite me to dinner often, share stories, ask questions, laugh, teach me things and always say hello. I made a lot of friends and I miss them. The life I had was surrealistic to me now. It was two years of going back in time to me. Inconsistent electricity and running water. Cobblestone streets. Having to make phone calls from the national phone company office downtown. Few privately owned cars. 24 hour service at stores, all you had to do was wake up the store owner any time of night and they would sell you what you wanted.

Click here to go to a web site in Ecuador. You can get news and other info on the country.

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Story Source: Personal Web Page

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Ecuador

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